Had an interesting trip in the R56 Cooper today!

Saw a puff of steam on my journey when sitting at lights. I actually thought it was exhaust gas from the car in front as it only happened for a second and went away.

A mile or two later I was on the bypass and my low coolant light came on. I managed to pull into services in about another 1/2 mile.

Checked car, NO coolant in it at all and lots of water about. I actually checked my coolant on Sunday after washing the car and it was fine.

So, I called MINI emergency and a super chap arrived in just less than an hour.

He filled the car with water and looked in the usual places to find the leak, as the water was still dripping out.

It turns out that there was a hole in a pipe from the expansion bottle. The cause was that the pipe has been sitting on the gear selector linkage and in two years has worn a hole in it

Anyone know if this is a known fault on the R56? The pipes (in mine at least) are not adequately held away from the linkage which has a sharpish piece on it.

So, the technician did a superb repair job binding it with self-almalgamating tape and will phone dealer tomorrow. It will though need to be fixed properly.